Grad students establish fund to assist future students

Published
June 5, 2014

New graduates from the School of Management have raised money
and created a new gift fund to help future students and give back
to the school.

Graduates from the full-time MBA and MS programs established the
new Graduate Internship Fellowship to Students (GIFTS) Fund to ease
the financial burden for master’s students who accept unpaid,
credit-bearing internships.

A total of 166 students raised more than $10,000 for the
inaugural gift, doubling their initial goal of $5,000.

From this fund, six students each have received a $1,000 award
to help offset the tuition fees for their summer internships. MBA
students Ying Hui Chen, Kerry Giansante, Samantha Podlas and
Prashant Ranjan, and MS students Wenqing Gao and Tongpei Zhai were
the award winners.

Additionally, two $250 awards will be given in both the upcoming
fall and spring semesters to assist other students with unpaid
internships.

“When I heard about this fund I could not have been more
pleased,” says Carrie Gardner, administrative director for
the Credit-Bearing Internship Program. “This impressive
gesture by our graduates has created an opportunity for recipients
to consider valuable internships they otherwise may have overlooked
simply based on pay.”

The GIFTS Fund was established in memory of Narang (David) Kim,
an MBA candidate who passed away last summer. A student committee
developed the fund based on recommendations from a survey of
full-time MBA and MS students in the School of Management.